This Rickety Bridge Hasn't Tossed Us Yet
by Firetoflame
Summary: Clint makes a different call. But apparently bringing the Black Widow "in" and not back "in a body bag" is a problem for SHIELD. Now she's his problem. Well, he figures, every partnership has to start somewhere.
1. Chapter 1

It starts as a punishment really: this thing.

This explaining how SHIELD works to a woman capable of killing with blank stares and bullet-less guns.

_Only fair_, Clint supposes, seeing as he's the one who snuck her on the Quinjet in the first place.

Fair since he did not in fact dispose of his target, but instead brought her back to headquarters, marched into Coulson's office and then Fury's when his handler had all but fainted at the sight.

Dodging a fiery Maria Hill, with her gun drawn and aimed was the least of his worries after that.

He had endured the wrath of the eye patch.

And had been threatened in a series of bumbling, two-worded stutters with disciplinary action and suspension.

He had his bow confiscated and strung up from the rafters in the basement.

Someone even slashed the back of his uniform; thankfully it was only while it hung in his locker. He guessed it was that douche Jenkins, but he'd deal with him later.

People—his fellow agents and superiors alike—were scared shitless and he was so preoccupied explaining and defending his actions in a series of interrogations that left him weary and hungry, that he didn't have time to do anything but yawn and assure Coulson that he had not lost his mind.

Apparently bringing the Black Widow _in _and not back _in a body bag_ was a problem. A treason kind of problem.

The SHIELD base trembled at the thought of _her_ walking through the halls unchecked.

But seemingly the best they could do to punish him in the end was to assign her every movement, action, and thought to him.

"Your problem, Barton!" Fury had boomed, his knuckles cracking against his desk where he leaned. "She steps out of line. Your problem. She interferes in anyway. Your problem. She shoots you in the goddamn chest. Your problem! Understand?"

"Loud and clear," he had replied, ducking out of the room and retrieving said problem from a trembling, shifty-eyed Coulson.

Natalia Romanova, aka Black Widow, looks more than pleased with herself as she sits, legs crossed on the arm of the couch in the hallway, inspecting her fingernails with the same gusto Agent Coulson is eyeing her with.

And so here he was, escorting the most deadly thing to ever pass through SHIELD to medical.

"Perhaps you should have told them," she says quietly as Clint leads her through a tangle of color-coded halls that she works to memorize.

He notes that she's dropped her accent already. A guise? Which of her many covers has she adopted for the role?

"Nah, it's better this way."

"If you say so." She walks beside him, never ahead, never behind, but in pace with his lengthy stride.

"I do."

But maybe she's right. Maybe a heads up would have been a good idea. Wasn't that SHIELD's motto? Be prepared?

_Yeah_, he thinks, _sort of_. But he also thinks the end of the motto was something like . . . _to blow shit up._

If he had thought to warn Coulson or Fury or even Hill they would have walked off the Quinjet to a barrage of bullets.

So yeah, it's better this way. It's better to shout surprise than to dig bullets out of his chest.

He looks over at her again, examining the stoic, if not mildly impressed expression on her face as they pass the gym, the training center, Intel . . . _the cafeteria_. Sure must beat the cold-ass Russian warehouses. He wants to ask her if she's ready for this. If she's ready to start all over again.

He doesn't though, because he knows she's not. At least, he sure as hell wasn't.

But with Coulson's help he turned out okay.

She would be okay, too.


	2. Chapter 2

Medical goes better than expected, Clint thinks, flipping through a catalogue another agent left in the waiting room. He's waiting for Natalia, for her pre-check up to be over. For blood to be drawn and measurements to be taken, recorded, and entered into SHIELD's never ending databases.

It's the first step to her new life.

It's not a big deal really.

Until it is.

There's a scream. High pitched. Frantic. Drawn and cut off in the kind of syllable that only disappears when a body has been sharply ejected into the first parallel surface it can reach.

Clint bolts into the room and behind the privacy curtain. He blinks, snaps his head back and forth, assessing, regulating—his heart's in his throat. And the nurse is out-cold on the floor.

Natalia waits patiently on the bed, gowned in hospital garb; her head tilts innocently, her hands in her lap, a broken syringe by her feet.

She watches him, eyes wide, like she expects something from him first. A threat. Violence. Some sort of punishment. He's not sure what she expects, but whatever it is he doesn't do it and she sighs. Not out of relief but for something to do.

He kneels by the body and with two fingers feels for a pulse. It's strong at the carotid, pumping and pumping and—

He stands, crosses his arms, and leans against the wall. He doesn't smile because that would be wrong, but he can't hide the amusement in his eyes.

"I don't like needles," she finally offers, twisting her hands in her lap.

"You can't just toss the nurse across the room."

"Can't I?"

"It's not a matter of questioning your ability."

"That's not what I was referring to."

Clint sighs now, his lips twisting, betraying the not-smile just a bit. "No, you can't toss people around at SHIELD when you're uncomfortable. They need to draw your blood. It's part of the deal."

She looks at him, eyes narrowing. "Fine."

He returns with another nurse who helps him lift their colleague off the floor and into the bed next door; then he waits while the blood is drawn. Natalia looks anywhere but at the needle which happens to be his face.

He holds her gaze, unwavering, if not mildly curious. The infamous Black Widow and all it takes is a syringe to unnerve her.

Though, surely this would never really interfere with her work.

And they all have their demons.

This is just one of hers.

"See, that wasn't so bad," he says from the other side of the curtain while she changes.

She comes around the corner to meet him and shrugs. "Maybe."


	3. Chapter 3

The first time she runs the SHIELD task course it's only under the eyes of Phil and Maria and Fury.

Clint takes his perch behind them, steady on the balls of his feet as he spies her whipping through the course below. She's fast. But he already knew that.

And agile.

Flexible in a way that makes his joints creak.

She's perceptive. Unfazed by the unfamiliar surroundings.

And her aim is true. It's the only time since coming here that she's been allowed to hold a gun.

Once she steps off the course she loses it again.

But that's a mute point because she's cleared the course faster than any SHIELD agent that has ever come before.

"I told you," Clint says.

Fury's hands twist behind his back. "We'll reserve judgement for later, when we see if we all end up murdered in our beds tomorrow."

"Fair enough," Clint says, standing and stretching. He thinks he wants to put in some time at the gym. A little hand to hand. He suspects his new charge will lend him a hand with that, if only to rub her superior skills in his face.


	4. Chapter 4

"Barton, report to the Briefing Center."

The announcement rings out overhead, sharp, demanding, and twenty pairs of eyes in the gym hit him square in the chest.

He doesn't wonder what it's about, simply drops his weights back on the bar and stands. It's not a what after all. It's a who.

He just wonders what she's done this time.

He leaves the gym and heads towards the Briefing Center. It could be as simple as looking at someone the wrong way. Or maybe she's tossed another person into a wall or broken a couple fingers.

It's always a surprise with her.

When he arrives there's a hallway full of new recruits mulling around, casting wary glances into the Briefing Center where Natalia sits, alone, hands folded across the oblong table top. He sighs, listens to series of events unfold from a bunch of punch-happy newbies who could all use a good kick in the pants, and pushes into the room.

She looks up at his pointed eyebrow and shrugs.

"You can't curse at them in Russian," he tells her. "Or threaten to use them as target practice."

"Can't I?"

"Well, you could, but it's not how we generally tend to do things at SHIELD. It scares them."

"I'm a scary person."

"You are," he agrees because it's the truth. The Black Widow isn't named after some deadly-ass spider for nothing.

She looks sideways out the window, squinting against the setting sun. The day is cold, but it's clear. There would be snow in Russia right now. "The world is full of scary people," she amends after a moment. "I don't know how things are done here, but they need to learn that fast."

Clint sighs. "Are you purposely trying to keep yourself isolated?"

She frowns then and looks back at him, biting the edge of her fingernails. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" she asks.

He's sitting across from her, on the other side of the table. He doesn't want the newbies to be able to read his lips through the window, though he doubts they could. They have about all the skill of a half-cup of day old coffee. "I've given you plenty of opportunity to kill me," he tells her and he's serious. He'd be lying if he said he hadn't been sleeping with one eye open.

"You have," she agrees.

"Just give them time. And swear in English. It'll help with the trust building."

She mutters under her breath and Clint has never heard a more derogatory thing about a dog in his entire life.


	5. Chapter 5

The next time he's called, it's by Maria Hill personally. She looks ready to throttle him as she gestures frantically to her office where a mop of curly red hair can be seen through the slit in the blinds.

"Did you ask her to leave?" Clint wonders.

"Am I going to ask the Black Widow to do anything?" Maria bites back with all the ferocity of a mama tiger defending her cubs.

Clint sighs and walks over to Maria's office. He knocks twice so as not to startle Natalia and slips inside. He scans the computer screen over her shoulder, seeing her personnel file flicker across. She doesn't turn around but he senses that she knows it's him because her shoulders haven't adjusted the way they do around strangers.

She also hasn't tried to kick him in the balls yet.

"You can't leave training to go through the SHIELD files," he says.

"Can't I?"

"How did you even get past the security passwords?"

There's a playful lilt to her voice. "I'm a woman of many talents."

Clint casts a glance out the window. Maria is fuming, her arms crossed, her foot pounding the floor. He slinks down in the chair next to Natalia. Her green eyes reflect the harsh white letters on the screen. "So, just some light reading?" he inquires pointedly. It's as close as he's ever come to chastising her. Probably the closest he'll venture until he knows her better.

"I like to know what the enemy has on file about me."

"SHIELD's not the enemy anymore."

She pauses at that and turns to him, giving him a strange kind of look before finally relenting. "No, but I still like to know."

Clint takes a sweeping look over his shoulder again. Maria is arguing with Coulson now, distracted for the moment. He leans closer to Natalia, until their faces are the only things he can see in the reflection of the computer screen. "What do they got on me?"


	6. Chapter 6

They're sharing the two-person bunk room on the third floor of the SHIELD base again to catch up on some much needed sleep. Neither of them has left the base since Clint brought the Black Widow in, for security purposes, but that doesn't mean they haven't been put through their paces.

Training and training and training and . . . SHIELD mandated therapy.

Clint would rather run every block in the city than sit through the latter, but it's just one of those things. He's finally gotten Natalia to stop hurling the tissue box across the room at the therapist. So they've finally got one to stick.

At least she says she's not quitting.

Her body language says something else entirely.

Clint flops back on his pillow, his mind too restless to find sleep.

He can hear her steady breathing across the room and he knows he's not the only one still awake.

"What are you thinking?" he asks.

"I don't want to be Natalia anymore."

Clint blinks into the darkness a few times. Not exactly the pillow talk he was expecting. But she's not exactly your average woman. "Alright. New life. New name. That fits."

"But I don't want to become so far removed that I forget it either."

"Fair enough." Clint rolls over on the bunk and reaches for something on the side table. He opens the SHIELD issued laptop and suddenly the room is filled with white light. Natalia sits on her bunk now and stares at him. He starts typing. "So, what do you think about Naomi then?"

She shakes her head, red curls bouncing along her shoulders.

"Nancy?"

Her eyebrow quirks and he laughs. No, she's definitely not a Nancy.

"Nellie?" He doesn't even look up for a response to that one. He can tell by the little, indignant huffs she's making.

"Natasha?"

There's no sound and Clint looks up to find her gazing at the ceiling. She's lying down, hands behind her head, in what can only be described as deep contemplation.

"Natasha's not so bad," she confesses.

"Alright, Romanoff."

"Romanoff?" She sits up again, her stare quizzical.

"Yeah. Romanova . . . Romanoff. Not too different, but—"

"Just enough," she says, and there's a smile at the corner of her mouth that makes her look almost happy. Almost, though it could be confused for maniacal. She lies back down again. "Natasha Romanoff," she whispers and it becomes the chant that eventually lulls them both off to sleep.

**. . .**

The next day he has her SHIELD credentials printed. It takes an hour of pestering Coulson to get the approval but he wants her to have something tangible. Something real from this new life. This new her. He wants her to feel like part of the team and not like some alien being escorted through the halls.

It takes this long because issuing her credentials means she can access the common areas without an escort. It's some semblance of freedom that she has yet to experience. He can see the wary look in Coulson's eyes as he contemplates what it means to have Black Widow trailing SHIELD unattended.

He fails to mention, or really point out, that Natasha is a spy. A damn good one. And if she wanted into the gym, a little plastic card with a barcode wasn't going to stop her.


	7. Chapter 7

He thinks Russian is one of the most complicated sounding languages he's ever tried to learn, but she makes it easier when she sticks to the phrases she likes to mutter at him. Most of these consist of swears.

Or at least that's what Clint thinks, until he mutters something under his breath one day and Coulson looks up at him, brows raised.

"I'd like to see you strut around SHIELD in a one piece, though Fury might have something to say about it."

That's the day he learns that the Black Widow is ticklish and that she has a twisted sense of humour.

She laughs about if for days and Coulson doesn't seem so wary of her when they're forced to stand next to each other during a meeting. In fact, he gives her a kind of half smile and to Clint's surprise she returns it, until they both stop to look at him of course and bust a gut.

Clint has never had to glare so hard in his life.

He's also never had to work so hard for the attention of his handler, but things seem to be changing.


	8. Chapter 8

He finds her in the cafeteria, feet propped on the table next to her food tray. "Don't tell me I can't sit like this," she says as his shadow falls across her. "You bloody well know no-one is going to sit with me."

"I know."

"Except you."

"I come for the food. You always get bigger portions than everyone else."

She looks up at him through her bangs. "Being the most terrifying thing in this place has its perks."

"I'll say."

He takes a handful of fries from her tray. She hasn't touched the food yet. "Don't you care that no-one will sit with us? You must be lonely having to share your company with only me all the time."

"I never sat with anyone before you. I didn't miss them then and I don't miss them now."

"Was it because they couldn't understand you or because they all talked far too much for their own good?"

Clint laughs. "You noticed that too, huh?"

She gives him a tired look. He hasn't answered her question.

"Isn't it all the same?" he asks.

"No."

"No," he agrees. "But you don't annoy me at least."

"Unless I'm asking you too many questions?"

He leans back in his chair, comfortable but for the eyes that wander the room and land on them. Someone's always trying to pry. It's what spies do. Finally he shakes his head. "Even then."

She takes what he says in stride because on the outside Clint Barton appears to be the most insouciant agent she's ever known, but that's a lie. His tells are in his eyes. The brief flickers. The lingering glances. The dilation of his pupils. It's all there. She could write a book mapping out his emotions.

But for everything she can gather, she cannot detect a lie.

So maybe her presence doesn't really bother him.

He's not unnerved by her at the very least.

And the wide berth the other agents seem to give him hasn't rubbed him the wrong way against her, so maybe he was just a solitary creature before she came upon the scene.

Maybe he was a bit like her.

Maybe that's why they seemed to fit.

And for the first time Black Widow finds herself wondering what it would be like to work, not as one, but as two. A team.

"Fury's got us training together for the next four weeks."

She nods. He's made a significant dent in her fries while she's been thinking and she swipes a couple before they're all gone. He's a bottomless pit sometimes.

"He thinks we'll make a good team. Delta, I think. Yeah, that's what the report said: strike team Delta."

"A strike team?"

"Well that's not gunna be all we do. Mostly spy stuff. That's what we're good at." He quirks an eyebrow, considering that. "Well let's face it, we're both good at a lot of things."

She agrees with a nod, swallowing another fry. He's not wrong.

"So, what do you think, partner?"

Her lips curl. It's not quite a smile but it's enough to tell him that she's not completely opposed to it. "We do work well together."

"We do."

"And I don't annoy you."

"My thoughts exactly."

"It could be good." She watches his eyes then, seeing the way they dance when they look at her, crinkling at the corners in that smiling tell. Yes, she thinks. Partners could be good.


	9. Chapter 9

She can get her own place now. With the new alias it's not a problem. SHIELD has set her up. Bank account. Credit. U.S. citizenship.

She doesn't have to hide away in the cramped SHIELD bunks anymore.

She also doesn't have to bunk over in his spare bedroom either.

But he has room in his apartment and she wasn't opposed when he suggested it.

Maybe it's a partner thing, he thinks. Or maybe she's clinging to the first real thing about this new life. Him.

But he finds he doesn't mind that his once solitary life is now disrupted on a daily basis with things far too feminine for his liking and yet, completely intriguing in stride.

He finds her nail polish spread out on the living room floor one afternoon. He's sat in his favourite chair in front of the T.V. and had to tiptoe around the array of brightly coloured bottles.

She returns to the room with a nail file and sits in front of him.

"Red," she says, holding up a bottle for him to inspect. "Or blue?"

"Red," he says without a thought. And he wonders about the dexterity and flexibility required of the seemingly simple task as she hunches over her knees to reach her toes.

It starts like this, but he doesn't mind.

Not when he finds her clothes in the dryer, as scanty as they might be.

Not when the cupboard shelf now holds two well used mugs with chipped rims.

The fact that her unnaturally plush towel hangs beside his in the bathroom is okay. And that the couch pillows smell like lavender: her perfume.

He doesn't mind the extra shot glasses that line the counter in the morning; he's just intrigued by her ability to put alcohol away.

"I'm Russian," she informs him, knocking back her sixth glass in the last twelve minutes.

"You're maybe 125 pounds soaking wet."

"I could take you." She doesn't threaten. It's not a threat. Just a fact that he affirms.

"I know. That doesn't excuse science."

She rolls her eyes at him, and he's learned not to mind that either. "Just pass the bottle, Einstein."

And he doesn't mind so much when the demons of his past throw him out of bed at odd hours of the morning and he finds her in the kitchen, brooding over her own cup of post-nightmare tea, as he moves to start the coffee.

"I'll tell you mine if you tell me yours," he says, rubbing his hands over his face as he works to regain control of his lethargic limbs.

She smirks at him under heavy lids and through tangles of red.

But they don't talk shop. Instead they talk about anything else. And it's nice.


	10. Chapter 10

They're assigned their first real mission out of the country when Fury and Hill decide that the Black Widow isn't likely to kill Hawkeye.

The threat level isn't completely zero.

They're still thirty-nine percent sure she could be working against them, but she has Coulson's vote now so the mission is approved.

Clint flips the file over. Budapest is scrawled across the margin in thick red letters.

"Ever been to Hungry," he asks as the Quinjet takes off.

She nods. "You?"

"Just passing through. Looks like I'm gunna get to hang out for a while this time." It's an undercover terrorist cell that they're infiltrating by the name of Black Earth. A previously dormant gang that recently merged back onto SHIELD's radar when a large supply of explosives exchanged hands.

"Ever heard of these guys?" Clint asks, tossing her the file.

Natasha skims it, lingering the longest on the facial snapshots. Clint sees her committing the features to memory. The leader, Victor Plancovic, has a large scar running parallel to his nose, cheek to chin. "One ring is pretty much like the next," she says. "Do we bring him in?"

"No," Clint says. "SHIELD wants to send a message this time. From the top."

Easy job, Coulson had told him. Quick hit. Quiet. Then back to base.

But it wasn't an easy job.

Budapest was a maze of mole hills and black markets. It took them three days just to secure accurate information as to Plancovic's location.

As it turned out, they weren't exactly prepared to be attending the Royal Gala.

"How'd this guy even get on the invite list?" Natasha asks from behind the dressing room curtain.

Clint leans against the wall, eyeing the shop keepers, waiting on his partner. She's quick about it: this shopping thing. "Probably a cash exchange. He's got the corrupt politicians in his pocket as long as his cash flow feeds them."

She seems to accept that. "How am I getting in?"

"Coulson's working on it," Clint replies.

The curtain moves and Natasha steps out clad in the first dress.

Every part of him tightens at the sight. The first dress is good, he decides.

It's black, form fitting. One shoulder strap. With lace cut-outs at all the right places.

His mouth goes dry.

"Will it do?" she asks, pulling her hair back as she spins in the mirror, admiring the angles. Clint admires them too.

"Perfect," he says. He flips a credit card out of his pocket. "On SHIELD."

Natasha smirks. "Then I'll need a pair of shoes, too."

That night Natasha arrives in front of the Grand Marquis Hotel in a limo courtesy of SHIELD. She plays with her earring on the pretense of adjusting her Comm.

"I can hear you," Clint says. He's up high. Her eye in the sky for the night. The hotel has massive floor to ceiling windows in the main ball room where the Gala is taking place. He's been watching the guests arrive for the last hour and he watches Natasha now as she crosses into his snipers view. "So, who're tonight?"

"Silvia Crestoff," she says to him, doubling the words as the name she gives to the bartender. She feels easier with a drink in her hand.

"Well, Silvia, I've got an interested party on your right. And our target at your two o'clock."

Natasha sees him, too.

She also sees Bruno Cornicova. Antonio Dolohan. Sergie Reichente. Victor isn't alone. He's got every high ranking member of his cell here.

He knows he's a target.

Clint's sniper aim moves as she rounds off the names in the Comm. He recognizes the pictures from the file. There's even a few she hasn't spotted yet. He brings his sights back to Natasha and sees the panic in her eyes. She looks around the room, past the dancing couples and uptight waiters, mentally ticking off the complications.

She's painfully outnumbered.

Not that she hasn't been out numbered before, but there are an awful lot of civilians here.

And Clint seems a world away.

Until he isn't.

She suddenly spies him across the room, clad in a tux previously belonging to a chauffeur outside.

He's still tucking in his shirt as he smiles at her.

They meet in the middle of the floor and he holds his hands out to her. She takes them and he lowers a hand to her hip, pulling her into a slow sway to match the music. "Thought you could use a hand."

"There's too many of them here." Her words caress his ear, like one lover speaking to another. They play the parts well and no one is any the wiser. "If we grab Plancovic now they'll be all over us."

"It's too open," he agrees.

"So what do we do?"

Clint pulls her closer, inhaling her perfume, shaking off the daze it spills over him. She holds him just a bit tighter as he spins them, keeping an eye on the target. "We dance," he says. "And we watch."

Natasha seems satisfied with that and she settles, resting her chin against his shoulder.

As it turns out the bowels of the hotel are home to Black Earth's headquarters, explaining the surplus of muscle at the Gala. As good spies do, Clint and Natasha manage to infiltrate it.

The night, and the mission for that matter, ends in a fire fight.

Natasha shoots out a barrel of explosives and the entire warehouse built beneath the city goes up like a firework in July.

For thirty-five seconds Clint's heart rams against his stomach as he waits for the dust to clear or for a flash of red hair to emerge from the smoke.

When it does he sighs deep.

She's got a gash across her forehead and she's clutching her ears.

She was too close. He knows this.

She's just lucky to be walking.

But the way she clutches at her head and looks around, frantic as the world around her shakes, he knows something's wrong.

When another barrel explodes behind her and she doesn't even flinch Clint knows it's her ears.

He goes to her then, navigating the stairs and the debris.

He cuts through the smoke, taking her arm and it startles her. At first he thinks she's going to hit him, but when she recognizes him beneath the sheen of grey that has covered his face, her eyes crinkle and her hands move back to her ears.

"I know," Clint says, or maybe he shouts. It doesn't matter though. She can't hear, but she gets the gist of it and allows him to lead her away.

The Quinjet picks them up an hour later and, once they're back at SHIELD, Clint waits while Natasha goes through medical.

Coulson comes out first and he frowns. "It's not permanent," he says. "But the doctors don't know when it's going to come back." He squeezes Clint's shoulder. "I'm sorry."

Clint understands.

It means she's been pulled off active duty until it comes back.

Which means he's off, too. The partner thing.

Which means, for the first time since joining SHIELD, Clint takes a vacation.

They lie around the apartment like bums, never changing out of their pajamas, and eat takeout.

They watch cheesy action movies with the subtitles on and fall asleep on the couch, their feet tangled somewhere in the middle.

He takes her out on the town. She can't hear but they've always been good at communicating without it and she reads his lips easily.

They go to museums and to theaters. They read up on some old mission files.

They even rent a car and drive to an old cottage Clint once held up in.

It's in the middle of the lake while they're making a half-ass attempt at fishing that Natasha's hearing suddenly returns.

She's caught a fish and Clint's hauled it out of the water, holding it up for her to see, and she squirms away, much to his amusement.

It's after laughing at her for ten minutes that he finds himself pinned to the floor of the canoe.

"Will you shut up already," she says against his neck.

"Tasha?"

The smile that spreads across her face has his insides flipping.

"C'mon Barton," she says, hauling him back up. "I'm in the mood to shoot things."

"God, I thought you'd never ask."


	11. Chapter 11

The first time she meets Pizza Dog she has been living with Clint for three weeks.

Seven months later he is still feeding the poor beast that hides out in the alley behind the apartment. "You know if you keep feeding him he'll never go away," she says, rolling her eyes and turning the key at the front door.

Clint rubs the spot behind the dog's ears while it gnaws on a pizza crust. There's a longing kind of look to his smile. "I know."

Two weeks later the dog is living in the apartment. It's really a mangy mutt of a thing, scrawny where he shouldn't be and shaggy everywhere else.

Natasha thinks he's better suited to the alley, but Clint wants this and the two of them are practically best friends—man and mutt.

Still, the dog stinks and Natasha refuses to go near him until he's cleaned up.

The first time they wrestle him into the tub Natasha ends up soaked and Clint laughs so hard he ends up pinned to the floor with a dripping Natasha hovering over top of him, her eyes narrowed and her voice low. "I told you this would happen."

They take him to the vet the next day and get his shots.

Clint grins as they stroll down the street together, the dog on a black leather leash, his arm hooked through hers. "He's really not so bad."

"I've yet to make an assessment," she replies.

And this is the right decision, she finds, because the dog is a pain.

He likes to eat her food when she's not looking and lick her toes just when she's finished painting them. He lies on her bed when she's not around and sheds on her blankets.

He curls up in her closet around her favourite shoes and jumps at her when he wants to be walked.

Clint thinks this is all just too precious and adorable and funny. So very, very amusing that he's taken to snapping photos of her when she rants at him about watching his dog and shows them to Coulson and Fury and sometimes holds them like black mail over her when he's in need of a good neck massage—they have both agreed that Natasha's massages are the best.

But somehow the dog wheedles its way into her graces, maybe not her good graces, but just like Clint, who she has come to care for despite her upbringing, it sits on her consciousness: a weight, always to be considered.

It's why she gives up the yelling and the threats, instead swearing muffled words in Russian. She also takes to training the stupid mutt. He proves to be a quick learner, much like her partner and she chuckles under her breath when she finally succeeds in teaching him to wake Clint up at four-thirty every morning.

This proves to work against her in the end because somewhere between walking the dog like a zombie and returning to the apartment, Clint only manages to make it to her room, chastising her with her own Russian swears, before he promptly passes out on her bed, tucking himself in between her and the wall. The dog curls up on the other side and Natasha is forced to while away the morning like this—the dogs tail beating against her thighs and Clint's breath on her back.

Still, Clint's so entirely happy with the dog. Even after returning from an intense game of fetch one evening, both of them soaked from the rain, he's beaming like an idiot and she finds she doesn't mind the wet dog smell, or at least, she chooses to ignore it with a crooked grin at their playfulness. That is until Clint drops down on the couch beside her, slinging a wet arm around her shoulders, mussing her hair, and his pup proceeds to follow him, laying his mangy, scruffy head on her lap.

Somehow they end up on the floor again, with Clint pinned beneath her. "I am not helping you clean this mess up," she says before stalking away, her hips a sight for sore eyes whether she's walking away from him or towards him. And for the rest of the night Clint scrubs the muddy paw prints from the floor, a goofy smirk on his face.

Because for all the things he's been pinned for, this could have certainly been a lot worse. She's going to have a hell of a time getting those stains out of her pants.

But Natasha doesn't kill him that night or even the next day when he finds her pants in the trash bin.

He chuckles to himself and names the dog Lucky.

**. . .**

The first time they have to leave Lucky to go on a mission Natasha wonders if Clint in going to cry.

And that's how they end up with a cat.

She's black with yellow eyes. Another stray, but she tolerates Lucky, and that's as much as Natasha can ask for from a superior creature as far as she's concerned.

When they're away they let them out, back into the alleys from where they came.

Clint still looks like he wants to cry when he watches them scurry away down the fire escape.

But together Natasha doesn't worry about them. They're partners. Quick and agile and for the most part, they trust each other.

Natasha names the cat Liho. It means bad luck in Russian.

Between the two of them, Lucky and Bad Luck, she thinks they'll be just fine.


End file.
